The Special Sauce of UX Design Team Culture
By Bill Fogarty, Senior UX Design Manager, Workday
The Workday UX Design team has tripled over the last 4 years, and we are always trying to find the next great team member who will bring something new to our UX design team culture. In that time, we’ve interviewed hundreds of great candidates and are often asked the same question: What is it really like to work here?
The Special Sauce
Having been around the block a few times, I started to reflect on why I enjoy working here so much. Here are what I consider the ingredients of the special sauce that makes Workday UX Design a great place to be:
- Workday leaders see UX design as strategic partners
Workday’s core values drive everything we do. As a company, we are people-focused, customer-focused, and innovative. We act with integrity and like to have fun along the way. Having a product with a good user experience was ingrained in the company culture from the beginning. It means that UX Design has a seat at the table with senior executives, and having that seat impacts our UX design team culture. How? For anyone who has spent time convincing stakeholders of the value of UX, you know how exhausting that becomes. But how refreshing is it when that battle is already won and you can focus your energy on improving the experience?
Our senior executives from product and development value UX Design as strategic partners. Our design leadership is customer-focused and gives us the support we need to innovate and deliver products that delight our customers.
2. We’ve assembled a talented, diverse, global team with a great sense of community
We have design team roles and responsibilities for every type of UXer, including user researchers, research program managers, research strategists, content strategists, product designers, product managers, producers, UI designers, visual designers, design system engineers, design educators, creative directors, design technologists, design operations specialists, software developers, and design managers.
Workday is a psychologically safe place to be, where diversity and individuality are celebrated. Everyone brings their authentic self to work. We deliberately hire people from different countries, cultures, educational backgrounds, design disciplines, agencies, and enterprises. We appreciate that everyone brings new and unique experiences, which helps drive innovation, one of Workday’s core values.
3. Workday empowers UXers and fosters career growth
The design team now has 150+ UXers globally, and with a solid design team structure in place, we are set up for success. It’s a very exciting time for our team.
Our internal career framework enables career progress from level 1 (a graduate) to level 7 (an industry influencer). We also support our people if they want to move into management or explore other career paths outside of the UX organization. It’s a place where people can progress in their careers, and as a result, they tend to stay longer. We have Workmates who have been here for 5, even 10 years, and they are still developing professionally.
Workday understands the importance of networking and building personal relationships. Our international travel policy empowers people to develop strong working relationships with peers, design partners, stakeholders, and users around the world. There are many opportunities to travel between our offices in San Francisco, CA; Boulder, CO; Dublin, Ireland; and Victoria, BC. We also travel internationally to conduct research with our customers. As a global design team, we can share insights from different influencers and conferences from all over the world.
We recognize that for our people to be successful, they need the right resources. This is reflected by the growth of our Workday Canvas Design System. We utilize the latest tools and technologies and are building dedicated design studios in each location for conducting user research and running design thinking workshops. As a result, we are having a visible impact on our products.
4. Workday nurtures its strong design culture
We have a great UX design team culture within the organization. We host an annual Design Week, where the full global team flies into one location to spend time together and learn from each other. Design Week is a 4-day, action-packed conference with TED-style talks, workshops, team building events, and breakout sessions. We also hear from industry leaders such as Peter Merholz, Steve Portigal, David M. Hogue, Billie Mandel, and Kim Williams.
On a personal level, it was a career highlight meeting up with all my teammates in the Dublin airport before flying out for Design Week 2018. There was such a great sense of excitement and wonder as everyone arrived, one by one, and discussed the week ahead. The week itself really delivers. The design knowledge and content shared is on par with any UX conference I have been to. Plus the breadth and depth of product knowledge on display is significant.
5. UXers solve meaningful problems
We have meaningful, challenging design and research endeavors for all types of UXers, whether they are subject matter experts, innovative problem solvers, creative thinkers, empathizers or task masters. One key advantage of working in enterprise rather than a design agency is that UXers at Workday solve problems and influence the roadmap of our product. They focus their energy on strategic problems, where they can have lasting impact.
6. Our culture supports work-life balance
Workday’s performance in the best place to work results every year validates the great culture within the company. It ranks #4 on Fortune’s List of the 100 Best Companies to Work For and #1 Best Workplace in Ireland by the Great Place to Work Institute for large companies, to name a few.
Work-life balance is very important to us as a leadership team and as a company. It is an unspoken understanding that evenings and weekends are our own. Workday also supports a flexible work schedule based on each person’s individual needs. This allows people to rest and ultimately be more productive during office hours. The high-trust environment, where flexibility is encouraged, is refreshing.
Our various locations around the globe do a lot to promote team culture with social events that enable employees to build connections with colleagues and their families. Empathy increases when the team knows about a member’s grandparent they care for, young kids, partner, 4 cats or beloved Workdog! This makes it easier to work together and respect each other’s work-life balance.
The Spice in the Secret Sauce
It would be no fun if it were not challenging. Workday is growing in all directions, so UX professionals have to be strategic about their time, targeting areas of the business where we can have the biggest impact. It has become critical for us to dedicate time to understanding the business, building partnerships with executives across the company, and showcasing our value.
Our customer base is also growing, and the way our customers’ employees work is constantly changing. Our products evolve rapidly to fulfill the needs of these employees, and roadmaps are ambitious. The challenge for us is to balance tactical delivery work with strategic thinking.
Alignment is something that happened organically in the past but has grown more difficult as we have scaled. Even while improving our design practice, infrastructure, and system, we are realizing the importance of staying aligned on a shared vision.
UXers can feel isolated being spread across teams, locations, and time zones. So we’re trying out grouping UXers into pods, utilizing war rooms, and following a review framework to foster a culture of collaboration. Additionally, we are experimenting with different models of team structure, where people spend a percentage of time co-locating between their scrum and design teams. This gives UXers the opportunity to not only contribute to a scrum team, but also collaborate with UX peers.
These are all good challenges that add spice to our special sauce. We realize that we cannot rest on our laurels. We have to keep evolving with the business, building relationships, showcasing our value, experimenting with new ways of working, and thinking ahead. There is never a dull moment!
A Recipe for the Secret Sauce
From the top down, our Senior Executives see UX Design as Strategic Partners, empowering us to design and build great products.
From the bottom up, we encourage UXers to grow their skills and try new things as they design at scale for millions of users around the world. We give UXers space and encouragement to grow, collaborate, and explore. And as a result, they create amazing products for millions of users around the world.
That’s the special sauce. When positive forces influence the organization from the top and bottom, the UX design team is well positioned to:
- make an impact
- deliver quality work
- operate strategically
- raise UX maturity
- create world class products that delight users
To top it all off, Workday is growing all the time, and there are lots of opportunities for people to progress in their careers. It’s a very exciting place to be. Interested? Check out some opportunities on Workday Careers.
